Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Releases Windows 8
Orome1 writes "Microsoft today announced the global availability of Windows 8. Beginning Friday, Oct. 26, consumers and businesses worldwide will be able to experience all that Windows 8 has to offer, including a new user interface and a wide range of applications with the grand opening of the Windows Store. Launching at the same time is a new member of the Windows family — Windows RT — designed for ARM-based tablets and available pre-installed on new devices. In addition to Microsoft Office 2013, Windows RT is designed exclusively for apps in the new Windows Store. In addition to the range of new Windows-based devices available, consumers can also upgrade their existing PCs. Through the end of January, consumers currently running PCs with Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7 are qualified to download an upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for an estimated retail price of US$39.99." Also at Slash Cloud, where Nick Kolakowski writes: "If the operating system and its associated hardware capture the attention (and dollars) of mobile-device users, Microsoft will have successfully expanded the Windows brand to a new and rapidly growing market segment. But if it fails, and Apple and Google continue to rule the mobility space, then Microsoft is left with few alternatives."
So pay 40$ for a downgrade ?
Who the fuck comes up with these crazy ideas ?
Posted using Windows XP Technology
Confession: I'm a Windows/PC user. Win 7 works fine for me. I use it at work. I use it a home. I can run pretty much anything I want on it. It's stable and mostly trouble free for me.
I've yet to see a single compelling reason to move to Windows 8 for desktop/laptop. Maybe it's OK for tablets? I don't know... I use Android and I'm happy with that. Is there *any* "ohhh... gotta have that" feature in Windows 8? Looks like a usability step backwards from Windows 7 to me. Am I missing something?
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
something something linux something something it works for me something something micro$oft tax something something free beer something something
Can I reinstall 7 or does upgrading invalidate my Windows 7 key?
The wall is a little steep, I'm sure you can all make it though. The grass is greener on the other side, honest.
Wow! What a surprise. up until yesterday there was absolutely no mention of this Windows 8 version that you are talking about. Who would have thought that Microsoft would develop a whole OS so secretly.
Do we need to keep this up. Let it come out already and see. This has been in the news for sooooo long now that it's probably going to be overshadowed by Windows 9 on Monday.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Relax. People here aren't excited by windows 8 because they are already dreading the calls they'll get from their friends and family asking where the damn start button is.
I haven't used windows for years...it still haunts me because i'm too polite to blow off everyone who asks me a computer question.
...for running Linux in a virtual machine.
At this point my setup depends heavily on virtualization.
I need to run the desktop software for which Windows is famous, and prefer the Windows "everything has a device driver" model to fiddling with configuration files.
But when it comes to getting stuff done, it's time to drop into the virtual machine where everything is configured as I'm used to, and I have all the tools built-in that I need to get the job done.
Microsoft could perhaps sway me by making SSH, an advanced command parser, etc. available for Windows, but for now I just delegate that to Linux, although "technically" my home OS is Windows.
Did you hear that, Redmond? * shakes floppy at empty sky *
It is a better OS from a technical standpoint. It is faster (Cakewalk found it sped up Sonar X1 in all heavy load cases) and some of the tools like the task manager are much better. However it isn't major.
On the down side its UI is ugly, and the metro stuff is crap. You don't have to use the metro stuff. Start 8 or Classic Shell will get you a real start menu and you can then ignore the tablet crap.
I'm fine with it, I use it at work since Windows support is my profession and I need to be familiar with it and it works well. However it is not a major update. Internally it calls itself Windows NT 6.2, 7 being NT 6.1. It is improved some, uglied up some, and has tablet bits it tries to shove down your throat.
In general I would say don't worry about it. If you've a reason to get it or a system comes with it, it'll work fine. You'll want to get a start menu replacer but it'll be fine after that. However I wouldn't rush out and upgrade. 7 works fine and 8 really does have an ugly UI.
it has better multi core use and other under the hood speed ups.
To bad it's build for touch and smaller screen laptops / tables.
And desktop mode needs to have a start menu and be able to run metro apps in a window.
Presumably this means they've announced the memory limits for Windows 8 somewhere? Windows 7 limits.
Sort of important if you want to know which version to get. I assume they're still segmenting.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
And all is good with a light from heaven shining down on the surface. Angelic music is heard as a golden crown above Steves head as he flies around with angelic wings.
If you happen to disagree? Bah you are just a middle aged old man who hates change!
http://saveie6.com/
Shills now own slashdot.
That isn't news either.
Looks like hardware drivers are being updated for Windows 8 support (WDDM 1.2 / DXGI 1.2 / etc). This means, even if you really want to upgrade, wait at least a few months. All the problems I had (and most people I know) going from XP to 7 were driver related. New driver models = new drivers = buggy drivers = unstable machine = let someone else be the beta tester.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Already had the first two laptops with 8 this week, and both of them got the ClassicShell treatment after realising the amount of support calls we'd get if the users get their hands on the new interface.
home
Sell me Windows 7 for forty bucks instead, and you've got a deal.
Why would I want Windows 8?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you took all of the smiles Windows created and laid them end to end, they would reach all the way to the galaxy and fill up the black hole in space.
I'll get this in before the hundreds of "omg don't want" posts. Windows 8 is significantly different from previous versions, not just for the interface which takes some initial getting used to (although many, predictably, end up warming to it - http://www.zdnet.com/dont-hate-windows-8-7000006297/).
Nope, this Windows is the first release that presumes/pre-empts that you, the user, will do your computing across multiple devices and that you don't want to have to worry about your data & user experience being tied to any one device.
Want to see it in action? Log into Win8 with an MS account on any machine - your apps, data, settings, everything will magically appear (assuming you've allowed it) even if the machine has never heard of you before (and again, assuming this isn't locked down). Load Office 2013 - again, your files & data appear as if you created them on that very machine, all completely seamlessly. All the apps & social integration stuff also follows you wherever you go - the idea being you wouldn't know you were on a new/different device - again all seamlessly streamed from whatever sources of social networking you have setup. That's huge; it effectively eliminates the concept of local file-systems for user data. Everything is transparently in the cloud and just works, as it should be. This is the first Windows to be built from day 0 on this basis.
Now, for people that don't like metro because they don't have touch? The answer is simple - don't use metro-style apps if you don't like them. Your old desktop works just as well (although it doesn't have the same level of cloud syncing) and all the apps you had on Win7 will work just the same way. If a killer game/app comes out in metro-style, guess what, you have the option to run that too. It would be like Mac OS users being able to natively load iOS apps if they wanted - the choice to be able to is good.
Not to mention the benefits for developers having a single & consistent API set to target every form-factor from multi-CPU gaming monster to WinRT/ARM tablet, and that's before we mention WP8 being as it is the same kernel. That's a benefit for users too; pick up any modern MS powered device from Xbox to tablet to desktop PC and the user will be in a familiar UI.
Also, keyboard shortcuts make up for any lack of touch. WinKey + X brings up the power-user menu; WinKey + C brings up the right-swipe bar; there's absolutely loads to help mouse/keyboard users feel at home, but there is a learning curve and from what I've seen from feedback, this is the most objectionable thing. People don't like change; bears have also been know to take dumps in the woods, life goes on.
Are you happy on Win7? Good for you; if you are on Win7 & have no other devices or intention of sharing data on anything but your trusty desktop, then frankly the benefits of Win8 are lesser.. There's a new & vastly improved task manager; Win8 is faster in almost all metrics, and there are some nice desktop GUI enhancements that you'd likely appreciate, however the face of IT is changing to one where it will be rare to have just the one computer, and Windows 8 has that front & center of the design.
One day your average IT worker will find the idea of saving personal data directly to a device actually most amusing I suspect, and the shift in thinking has already started.
There you go; that's my take on the best of Win8. I don't expect many here to appreciate it as I do but there's some real benefits in Win8, despite that being an unpopular opinion in the group-think echo chamber that Slashdot can be sometimes. Now lets return to the flaming.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I don't get this obsession with the start button. Mac OS X doesn't have a start button, Linux doesn't have a start button, the Atari ST didn't have one nor did the Amiga.
Are you so afraid of change that you're willing to stick with an older OS just because of the start button? That thing that says "Start" that you must click on to *shut down* the computer?
Says it releases at 11:15PM tonight in NYC, so it's not quite out yet. Me personally? I am converting two machines from Vista to 8. I couldn't justify the price of $400 for upgrades (Two copies at $200 each for OEM) to 7 for the rigs, but when I heard about the $40 upgrade path I was a bit giddy for getting rid of Vista. In hindsight Vista isn't bad, but it's being abandoned in the dust in favor of 7. So yeah. One laptop with minimum requirements and one four year old desktop are getting some new paint tonight.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
What I'm not OK with is a tablet interface forced on desktop users. Why can't desktop users have the option to default to well... Desktop mode. I would say 90% of my program launching activities is done from the task bar, so no big lost for me if there's no Start Menu.
You couldn't download your preferred email client? Nothing's forcing you to use the crap that's built in.
No, no, Windows 8 is brilliant. Now when people ask for help on their Windows machines I'll be able to say 'sorry, don't know how to do it' and mutter something about massive UI changes if they ask why.
I'm guessing they'll kill Windows 7 ASAP. That's why I just bought the parts to build a new gaming PC, which should last me until at least Windows 9, if not 10.
Assuming Microsoft is still around by that point.
And so begins another era of nerds lamenting change!!!!!
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Seems like a lot of wasted RAM to me. Many modern OSes use spare memory for stuff like indexing or to make frequently used apps instantly available. The key here isn't how much RAM it uses idling, but how much of it and how fast it can reallocate that memory to apps that need it. My Windows 7 box has 16GB installed and normally uses 4-8GB idling. My six year old laptop has 2GB installed and normally uses 1-1.5GB idling. Windows 7 scales very nicely between modern hardware and hardware several generations old. Windows 8 is supposed to be even better at it.
OMG WANT : http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tablet/thinkpad/thinkpad-tablet-2/
The most common reason people stick with Microsoft is because they are familiar with the GUI. With this major switch by Microsoft, is there any reason not to switch to Mac or Linux? Some Linux distros look a whole lot like the GUI that many people know and love.
I don't understand the business plan of "Force users to adopt a GUI they don't like just because we want it." What business college teaches that course?
Of course, despite all that, a lot of people will probably stick with Microsoft because, well, "It's Microsoft".
The lack of a graphic in the corner of the screen for the Start button is all it takes for you to call it a downgrade? Dear $DEITY how are you intellectually capable of breathing and typing at the same time? The Start button is still there, if you just click the corner of the screen like people always have. Or you could use the Windows key, like people who actually want to get things done quickly usually do.
If you don't want a tablet OS, buy Win8 instead of Windows RT. Actually, you *can't* even buy Windows RT directly... probably a good thing, for the apparently frightfully easily confused types like yourself. Hint: Win8 still has the full desktop pretty much as you're used to... except with an improved Windows Explorer, Task Manager, Taskbar (especially for multi-monitor), and a ton of behind-the-scenes improvements and new features (mount CD/DVD ISOs, Client Hyper-V, etc.)
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
But there is a start button, it is just a popup in the corner that opens a start screen that is full screen. Hitting the windows key will also popup the start screen. From the start screen you can just start typing the program name and it will show you search results.
Perhaps that happens when you use the Ballmer app?
http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/steve-ballmer/e1cd420c-8d42-4cc0-aa54-3254b41b7ed5
I'm wagering downgrade right will be limited largely to enterprise customers, and probably even there they'll find some way to make downgrading less desirable (ie. make downgrade licenses expensive). Microsoft will not allow Windows 8 to be hamstrung like Windows Vista was by allowing the previous version to compete with it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Linux doesn't have a start button
Many Linux distributions employ environments that do have something analogous to the "Start" menu.
/* No Comment */
Seems unrelated, but guess what software changes and evolves. The biggest reason to upgrade to windows 8 is that 8 is higher than 7. People still running XP are like people running a linux kernel 2.4 because 2.6 doesn't really have anything you need...of course it doesn't...its about the long term aggregation. XP doesn't run IE 9...why we have so much IE 8! Just upgrade already or buy a new machine or whatever...just do it. Yah your 1997 honda civic might run "fine", but I bet it has a tape player.
Having an OS that can run well on a tablet and well when in traditional PC use is going to be hard and it's going to take a few versions for anyone to get right.
MS is NOT apple. They don't need people standing in line on release day clapping at one another to be successful. No one gives a crap about some big line outside of a Best Buy. MS will sell this OS just like Windows 7....slow and steady. Apple wishes they sold even a fraction of the number of Windows 7 licenses of anything. Windows 7 = 670 million total, Ipad = 84 million.
This idea that Windows 8 is going to be Vista is sort of silly. Enterprises will likely have a Software Assurance or whatever MS is calling it these days and so the upgrade is just a matter of when not if.
Windows in the home? Windows in the dorm room? Harder to predict, but probably less often, but not less. You might get an Ipad every year and a PC every three. I ain't paying thousands more for a damn silver laptop I use every 3 months...some shitty 500 dollar Acer ultra book will do just fine. For the college student maybe a Chrome book is good nough.
MS is essentially the new IBM. They will come up with new products and people everytime will try and compare them to Apple...and everytime it will be for a different market no stupid day trader or CNet reviewer will ever understand. You never see "DB2 10 wil be a SQL Server 2012 killer"
p.s. If I hear another the "ribbon" in office is worse I'm going to shoot someone. The ribbon is better, if you don't think so your just old and stubborn. Your probably reading this in Chrome...u see a file menu? Even the three line menu is just a vertical ribbon. If your in FF do you see a file menu? Why do you think FF feels clunky? Techies love to hate Windows new GUIs and so there will be Metro haters...MS is smart enough to not care about techies and haters, but to care about average users.
If you think Hyper-V is the same as VirtualBox you know nothing of virtualization. Here's a start.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
Calm down. Linux is on plenty of devices. It has never been on desktops and never will be.
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Win 8 is like a car that has technically better performance in ways that the average driver will never notice. It is also uglier than sin and the starter, steering and brakes have all been changed and moved around to places the driver won't except them to be.
People still use the start button? I haven't had to use it since Win7. This is actually a large reason why MS got rid of it. Their metrics showed the average person almost never used it.
Downgrade rights are an end-user right, documented in the Software License Terms that customers accept upon first running Windows software. Note that end user downgrade rights will be available through the sales life cycle of Windows and Windows Server operating systems, which is up to two years after the launch date of a new version. ... Windows 8 Pro includes downgrade rights to: Windows 7 Professional, Windows Vista Business
So if you buy a Windows 8 PC, you can downgrade it to Windows 7 until 2014.
Further, Windows 7 support continues until 2015, with extended support until 2020 (or 10 years after launch, for those counting).
Windows 7 isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Here is what I have on my Win 7 desktop
1. Adobe PS, Dreamweaver, and Illustrator
2. VS 2010
3. Office 2010
4. Vmware
5. Utilities that include truecrypt, uTorrent, Firefox, Chrome, dropbox, truecrpyt, notepad++, skype, YahooIM, filezilla, Google Earth, Avast anti virus, Gimp 2, and Paint.net
In other words an average PC setup for someone who works and plays. Do you have any idea how many freaking tiles that would create! 80+ tiles!!
Visual studio has 15 links for utilities and websites (click here for Silverlight 3 SDk, click here for Silverlight 4 SDK ....). Adobe has shit like ActionScript Extender, Photoshop cs, Photoshop cs 64-bit ..
If I had this on Windows 8 I would have to scroll over and over and over and over and over to find everything with 12+ pages! Sure if I had every command memorized I could hit the start key with its inferior search over Windows 7 but I do not except for 4 or 5 programs off the top off my head.
Metro can't handle desktop apps because of the tile mess and I do not have a lot of programs compared to some folks who have +30 programs and shareware utilities. You are then talking about 100+ tiles.
http://saveie6.com/
False: http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/pages/downgrade_rights.aspx#fbid=6f6BiZDWOvZ
I use the Start Button everytime I want to shutdown Windows.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Not really. I do like the speed up and simplicity of having a roaming profile stored at Microsoft with a single hotmail account. Installing is Muuuch quicker with my settings all back after a re-image.
Overall it feels no different than Windows 7. Benchmarks show them similar with a tiny i/o advantage for Windows 8 under a few scenarios. Nothing that blows your hair back or anything.
The move from XP to Windows 7 on modern hardware has a much better impact on performance than to Windows 8. Especially for multi core systems. But the SMP code in Windows 7 is the same in Windows 2008 release 2 which can scale to 32 processors. If you have just an icore5 you wont notice anything. Now XP ... yeah that was optimized for 2 - 4 cores if anything as it is 11 years old.
Graphics are slower too on windows 8 as the drivers are not optimized yet. No contrary to popular belief the driver model is updated and WDWM has changed which is why IE 10 is not available for Windows 7 yet.
http://saveie6.com/
I'm really not! Now if only i could convince my family...
...is no longer included in Windows 8.
Earlier this week, I thought I'd upgrade my HTPC to Windows 8. I've been using WMC on W7 now for a couple of years and it has been working great using HDHomeRUn tuners for local broadcast reception and recording/time shifting.
Imagine my surprise. No WMC. It's a paid upgrade. Ok, I'll bite. Where to I upgrade it? Clicky linky. Sorry, the licensing server is not available.
So I said to myself, Self... Let's see what else this WIndows 8 has to offer. This user interface is a total abortion. After fumbling around for an hour and feeling like a fool, I eventually clicked some of the colored boxes on the screen. Not a single thing would launch with the exception of IE9. Reason? My TV is 720 lines of resolution, not 1080. Every stinkin' app said I didn't have the required resolution.
My HTPC is now running Windows 7 again. And will be for a long time to come. It's way too good of a television to discard for a new operating system.
We should start referring to processes which run in the background by their correct technical name... paenguins.
You don't need to keep everything pinned to tiles. If you felt like it, you could just pin a folder with all your shortcuts to each group to the launcher.
Only because the everyday casual user has no reason to care about virtualization at all.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
You reminded me of one feature I will miss: the "recently opened" menu that opens up when you highlight an application.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
It seems to me that many of the people that now use Linux/OSX/Android/iOS are doing it precisely because they DON'T want to use MicroSoft products. All of the aforementioned systems work just fine without any assistance from MS. Ok, so MS has a new OS and a new tablet. That's great if you're looking to stay in that ecosystem. But if you're using one of the other operating systems why in the world would you want to change?
I use a Mac and an Android phone and tablet. I've got a Windows VM on my Mac and haven't had to use it in probably a year. But I keep in around just in case. The phone and tablet work great. I've got tons of apps to choose from and I can do anything I want with it. Windows 8 and their shiny new tablet do no excite me in the least. I'm happy with what I've got.
It *would* be a shame, but they didn't, so that's irrelevant. Aero Peek, Aero Snap, Aero Shake, live thumbnails in Windows Flip (Alt+Tab), and limited use of transparency (the taskbar and the desktop overlays are still slightly transparent) are still present. The only Aero features that are gone are window border transparency (which I do miss) and Flip3D (which I don't). The keyboard shortcut of Win+Tab now switches among "Metro" apps and the desktop (as a whole), while Alt+Tab still switches among all open windows, including "Metro" ones. Aero Peek on Alt+Tab, hovering on Taskbar previews, or on the whole desktop using the lower-right corner (which also still functions as a "Hide/Show Desktop" button) all still work.
Win8 Pro RTM (build 9200) x64, shitty Intel integrated "Mobile GMA X3100" graphics with WDDM 1.1 driver.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Well rather than being a bitter middle aged man who hates change, these as well as yours is why Windows 7 is here to stay for me and millions of others.
Until the Modern UI has a taskbar and a way to organize a shitload of tiles from desktop apps, the ability of having more than one tile opened, ... and recently opened, I will hold off. Maybe Windows 9 will have this?
Microsoft has a story of releasing half baked products to make them stability and fixing them later in future releases. Vista was ugly and it seemed beta quality. MS fixed the colors and performance in Windows 7. Same with Internet Explorer. Unfortunately they were so damn slow that IE 6 got entrenched that people shun IE even though IE 9 and 10 are good.
I wish they wouldn't do this and just not release something before it is baked.
http://saveie6.com/
Sure, but Win8 has a corner of the screen (right where the Start button has always been) that, if you hover on it, actually says "Start" as well as displaying a thumbnail to show that there's something there.
I agree that the decision to remove the permanently visible button is weird and un-needed, but the Start button is still in Win8, pretty much where it always was (the hitbox is a bit different, but then, that changed before too).
Then there's the Windows key on the keyboard, which is sometimes even labeled as the "Start" key. It also still works correctly, something that Linux seems to struggle with (it can either be used as a stand-alone key or as a meta key that modifies other keys, but I've never seen it correctly used as "both" the way Windows does. There may be desktop environments that can do that now, though.)
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Therefore the whole UI is 'unusable' and 'has a steep learning curve'.
I'm starting to notice this is the main thing from people ragging on Win8, I installed the preview yesterday, though I had to do it on a different partition because the upgrade inexplicably choked, I like it, Metro is novel but it's not some crippling UI roadblock that prevents you from doing anything.
For 40 bones, I'll probably buy it. I think people just see all those Metro tiles and lose their minds.
Count me in!
it may be a bit bothersome to get around / disable the Win8 UI-elements I don't like, but apart from that this sounds like a really good deal.
sig? Oh, that sig...
Right click on the tiles you don't want. Click unpin. That's it.
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
Now that is a good idea and it's something I've been considering. I probably will eventually do it myself, actually. The only problem is, waiting for all computers currently in use to be replaced with Windows 8 machines. I say replaced, because "upgraded" seems to be absent from most people's vocabulary. I often use similar excuses when asked to deal with Windows 7/Vista machines, simply because I don't care to mess with them... but because the general layout of the GUI hasn't changed a whole lot, the claim doesn't really hold water. I've personally been Windows-free for about six years, when I left Windows (then XP) for good in favor of Linux. I provided relatively little help for Vista, and even less for 7. It's looking like the time is finally right to cut off all ties.
I haven't run Windows for a long time, but because I prefer to have a nice, clean desktop that doesn't have shit all over it (unlike my real-world counterpart), I tended to use the Start menu all the time. I would have the bare basics on the desktop (My Computer, Documents, Network Places, Recycle Bin, Firefox), five or six of my primary programs in the quick launch bar, and literally everything else I accessed from the Start menu. Including, of course, the Shutdown/Restart option...
While Win 8 may have a whole bunch of other problems, what you've stated is not one. If you assume AV technology is so primitive so as to be completely ineffective simply because virus writers will check against it, well, your assumptions need to be reconsidered. Do you think current viruses are not checked against Norton/McAffee/etc?
As long as users (or the software itself) updates the AV database regularly, the chances of an infection are indeed reduced to a huge degree. When a new virus hits, a few computers indeed will be compromised, but the flip side of that is that the signature will enter the database, so everyone else is safe.
Including a AV by default is a good thing. I only hope it is a competently designed application.
http://dilemma.gulecha.org - My philospohical short film.
Care to explain any advantages that you can get with VMWare over Hyper-V at the same price point? Aside from the ability for the hypervisor manager to run on Linux, which doesn't seem terribly relevant here, I'm not seeing it. This is a true (type 1) hypervisor, like ESX(i), with admin tools included, for no extra charge.
I'm not sufficiently familiar with the feature lists for both sides to give a point / counterpoint comparison, but Hyper-V (the Server 2012 version or Client) offer some nice features. Since my job frequently requires installing and testing third-party software (and I don't want it messing up or otherwise interacting with my own software), it'd be tremendously helpful to have on my workstation.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Linux uses any spare ram for disk cache, which makes applications load faster etc etc, and when it is needed for programs it will simply purge the cache.
Windows and os x on the other hand make a page file (and use it) long before memory is exhausted, and don't cache nearly as much when ram is free.
I don't own another version of Windows ... how the hell do I buy a version of Windows 8 that's not an upgrade? That website is a mess.
Considering Windows 7 was a whopping $200 when it came out, Windows 8 is quite a deal. Microsoft I be leave is doing this in an effort to get users off the old versions of there operating systems. It will be interested to see how this play’s out for Microsoft they are taking a major gamble redesigning the look, price point and cross platform compatibility.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Saw the ads this morning.
70$ for 32bit upgrade not 40$
110$ for 32bit OEM.
So pretty much as expensive as all of their OS really.